While national renewable energy policies – or the lack there of – remain mired in Congressional election-year politics, the great green future has already arrived in California.

On Tuesday, state regulators announced that California’s three big investor-owned utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison – had reached a mandated target – called the renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, to obtain at least 20% of the electricity they sell from renewable sources.

In 2011, the three utilities collectively secured 20.6% of the electricity sold to retail customers from solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable power generation. Southern California led the field with 21.1% of sales coming from renewables, followed by SDG&G at 20.8% and PG&E at 20.1%.

In fact, “2011 showed the greatest year-to-year increase in the capacity of renewable generation achieving commercial operation since the beginning of the program, and 2012 is already on track to far surpass 2011,” stated the California Public Utilities Commission in a report released Tuesday.

7. It can happen.

8. It's happening in Portland, Oregon too

A PGE representative knocked on my door a few weeks ago and gave me an option to get all of my electricity from renewable sources rather than the standard coal burning source. It costs about $8.00 more per month on average, but I figured it is a good investment. If enough people sign on, then I imagine at some point the cost will go down. Whether it goes down or not, I'd rather be paying a little more and burning less coal, so it was a no-brainer for me. I also know electricians out here who have begun specializing in setting homes up to generate their OWN electricity, and pump their excess back into the power grid. If we could just get the politics right, we've got the groundwork in place for a boom in renewable energy. Good news about California -- they got lots of sun -- no reason to be wasting all that sunshine on just tanning.